Colorectal cancer

Latest evidence

The research team at Imperial College London produced a report of the updated evidence on food, nutrition and physical activity in relation to the prevention of colorectal cancer in 2010.

The review added 263 papers and updated meta-analyses for wholegrains, fruits and vegetables, meat and fish, dairy foods, alcohol, dietary fibre, glycaemic index, folate, vitamin D, haem iron, calcium, physical activity, body mass index, abdominal fatness and adult attained height.

The Panel considered the updated evidence and agreed that the updated CUP findings confirmed or strengthened the convincing and probable conclusions of the Second Expert Report for colorectal cancer. The Panel agreed that the evidence for a protective effect from foods containing dietary fibre had strengthened could be upgraded to convincing. Conclusions for other factors previously judged to be convincing or probable were confirmed.

A WCRF/AICR Summary published in 2011, updates the colorectal cancer section of the Second Expert Report and is based on the findings of the 2010 report and the Expert Panel discussion.

Conclusions from the updated evidence for colorectal cancer

The Panel's judgements for factors graded convincing and probable are shown below. Further details on other factors can be found in the WCRF/AICR Summary. Information on how the Panel judged the evidence can be found in chapter 3 of the Second Expert Report

Six journal papers based on evidence presented in the 2010 report and more recent analyses have been published.

The updated report and summary, as well as the protocol can be downloaded from our resource downloads section.

Database

There were 546 papers on colorectal cancer from cohort studies in the database by August 2011.  The most active area of research continues to be body mass index. Alcohol also remains an active research area. In recent years papers have been published on dietary fat, folate, vitamin E and calcium.